As far as punters are concerned the Tories are strong odds-on to win the Batley and Spen by-election

..

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

IshmaelZ said:

kinabalu said:

Black_Rook said:

kinabalu said:

Black_Rook said:

williamglenn said:

Black_Rook said:

rottenborough said:

Adam Brooks
@EssexPR
·
2h
Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started.
Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.

Many are now finished for good.

SLOW CLAP
@GOVUK

The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.

We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.

National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.

Bring it on.

That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.

IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE

They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.

No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.

Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.

Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.

You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.

Your £1 against my £10.

I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.

But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?

God yes. The bloke's an utter charlatan. If it worked for him politically he'd reimpose hard lockdown and keep it there for years. I just think you're misreading the situation. A short pause in the roadmap is one thing. A tortured and prolonged twilight to the pandemic is quite another. He won't be doing what you fear. It won't play out like that. I absolutely promise you and that's not something I do lightly. If you won't take my bet, take my promise.

It is obvious that his instincts are very strongly against lockdown, and that if he is forced into lockdown extensions it will be out of necessity. This site is collectively singing from a hymn sheet which says "Are we nearly there, daddy?" and then "But daddy, you PROMISED we were nearly there" and refuses to recognize the exigencies of life. The Tory Party did not invent the virus and has next to no control over how it behaves. Especially not once lockdown has been removed from its toolkit by pb fiat.

Nah, sorry, Boris had the chance to close the border with India and prevent the massive seeding of the variant. This is not "one of the exigencies of life". This is a plain old mistake. Which will now cost thousands of lives and many billions of pounds,

This is about as obvious a mistake as you get, in politics

Agreed, but it was a libertarian, permissive, lazy mistake; it was the mistake someone fundamentally anti lockdown would make. So enough of the pound shop 1984 "a boot imposing a mask on a human face forevah" stuff which so many of our esteemed fellow posters are offering us.

Well maybe playing devils advocate he let the indian variant in to give him an excuse to lockdown again

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

Bollocks. Australia did it. We could do it

It would be fucking hard on people stranded but 150,000 Brits have DIED and now thousands more will die, and thousands of businesses will go under, and we will all groan under yet more billions of debt.

Spending an extra 3 months in India is not prison nor is it death.

We should have done it. We failed. Boris failed. The government failed. It is a calamity, and they must take the blame for a stupid mistake

Leon said:

dixiedean said:

I take it everyone venting here tonight will be swearing off a Tory vote while the PM is in power?
Nope. Thought not. Therefore he will remain.
Ultimately, then, who is responsible?
Yes, but Corbyn, flags, statue, boring, Brexit, Lib Dems, woke, trans, Greens, Count Binface, housing, taxes, wibble, take a knee, wibble, wibble.

It would help us Boris-skeptics if you guys could provide a decent Opposition. But you can't, can you? Fucking Corbyn, FFS, and now the idiot Starmer, who is entirely captured by the Woke

If you had a Blair in charge I would vote for him tomorrow, even after Iraq

Starmer's problems are more than just being captured by the woke. His slogan about wanting to make Britain the best place to grow up in and the best place to grow old in conspicuously leaves out the bit in the middle. He has no economic ideas at all.

I've said this before, but all i see is numbers of hospitalisations and deaths that were artificially suppressed due to lockdown measures, rising to a "natural" level that aligns with the country's general vaccine status.

All over Europe and America we can see figures for deaths largely not falling particularly, but plateauing at levels far higher (5-10 times higher pro-rata) than we have in this country. And then falling gently as more people get vaccinated. The difference here is that we are opening up at an artificially low figure, so we have a (pretty rapid) rise to a natural state.

This does not mean that the rise will continue beyond the natural state, and because we are more vaccinated than other places it will probably begin to plateau at a lower level. I don't see the case number figures as particularly relevant, because that is in part a consequence of the extremely high number of tests we do in this country.

We do not have a infinite population, however all the models are effectively assuming we do.

Had we opened up when we had 100 deaths a day, rather than 10, nobody would be saying we had much of a problem.

DougSeal said:

In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?

As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.

We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.

I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.

You're wrong about the trade deal and actually giving Boris too much credit.

It wasn't about a trade deal it was the meeting.

Look at how much fun Boris is having pow-wowing in Cornwall.

Boris doesn't like detailed negotiations but he loves the events and vacuous pronouncements that these international meetings are filled with.

You're also wrong about hospitalisations as you will see when the NHS doesn't collapse by the end of June as you have predicted.

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

dixiedean said:

I take it everyone venting here tonight will be swearing off a Tory vote while the PM is in power?
Nope. Thought not. Therefore he will remain.
Ultimately, then, who is responsible?
Yes, but Corbyn, flags, statue, boring, Brexit, Lib Dems, woke, trans, Greens, Count Binface, housing, taxes, wibble, take a knee, wibble, wibble.

It would help us Boris-skeptics if you guys could provide a decent Opposition. But you can't, can you? Fucking Corbyn, FFS, and now the idiot Starmer, who is entirely captured by the Woke

If you had a Blair in charge I would vote for him tomorrow, even after Iraq

Do you know what? I wouldn't have a Blair in charge.
I'd have the Blair.
Anthony Charles Lynton no less.
But it ain't up to me.
This is, however, a Conservative government and it is up to you, Tory voters. I don't vote for them, so am powerless. You do. So stop it. Stay at home draw a penis, whatever.

I would probably abstain, as things stand

And I agree with you: I'd happily have Tony Blair HIMSELF back in charge. He's good on Brexit (he's accepted it) he's good on Wokeness, he's good on Covid

We would be better off with him in Number 10. Even with his Stringfellow haircut

gealbhan said:

noisywinter said:

I've written to my MP- Mike Freer urging him to remove Boris if he delays freedom Day. If you have a Tory MP I hope you do the same. Obviously no chance of it changing anything but our voices need to be heard.

I am very angry... This is a disgraceful Prime minister

The government never dubbed it Freedom Day, only idiot newspapers and idiot posters to blogs.

The government never promised Freedom Day. Only a gap between unlocking to assess how to proceed.

The government are not breaking Freedom Day promise to you. They never made it. Only a promise to be cautious and sensible.

The Government kept wibbling on about there being no reason to delay until about 48 hours ago, leading the nation up the garden path

The Government created the problem with Delta by allowing a flood of travellers from India to seed it in pockets around the country

The Government has also, it would now appear, come to the conclusion that Delta is such a serious threat that re-opening is to be delayed indefinitely (because there's highly unlikely to be a promise of it, even in four weeks' time,) despite good evidence from the early hotspots that it won't make enough people seriously ill to place serious pressure on the hospitals - which is the sole excuse originally provided for the torture package of restrictions in the first place

The Government isn't being cautious and sensible, it is wetting itself and caving in to pressure from the creators of (highly unreliable) disease models at the first sign of trouble

The Government will keep us under restrictions of varying severity until kingdom come if it keeps behaving like that

Leon said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

There is no nuance to CLOSE THE FUCKING BORDERS WITH INDIA WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY CORPSES PILING UP IN NEW DELHI THEY CAN'T BURN THEM ALL

It's fairly basic governance. It's closing the gate in the city walls when the dragon is just outside. They knew this shit in about 2000BC

Somehow this "nuance" evaded our dear prime minister and his aides

The 'experts' are still using their 'world leading' plan which said that restricting international travel doesn't work.

Meanwhile our politicians love nothing more than traveling around the world pretending to be more important than they are.

Then there's the airlines and airports, perhaps the most reckless, greedy and stupid sector of the economy.

Finally there's the not inconsiderable number of holiday obsessives who will whine endlessly if they're unable to go anywhere they want anytime they want.

Pulpstar said:

CarlottaVance said:

Leon said:

the insane decision to allow in 20,000 Indian travellers, for no good reason whatsoever

Other than them (in all likelihood) being British Citizens? Yes, they should have been hotel quarantined - but are you suggesting we do what Australia does and stop the return of citizens & residents?

Hotel quarantine cuts down the numbers heading out substantially.

But many of them would already have been abroad. You don't go to India for the weekend...

Black_Rook said:

gealbhan said:

noisywinter said:

I've written to my MP- Mike Freer urging him to remove Boris if he delays freedom Day. If you have a Tory MP I hope you do the same. Obviously no chance of it changing anything but our voices need to be heard.

I am very angry... This is a disgraceful Prime minister

The government never dubbed it Freedom Day, only idiot newspapers and idiot posters to blogs.

The government never promised Freedom Day. Only a gap between unlocking to assess how to proceed.

The government are not breaking Freedom Day promise to you. They never made it. Only a promise to be cautious and sensible.

The Government kept wibbling on about there being no reason to delay until about 48 hours ago, leading the nation up the garden path

The Government created the problem with Delta by allowing a flood of travellers from India to seed it in pockets around the country

The Government has also, it would now appear, come to the conclusion that Delta is such a serious threat that re-opening is to be delayed indefinitely (because there's highly unlikely to be a promise of it, even in four weeks' time,) despite good evidence from the early hotspots that it won't make enough people seriously ill to place serious pressure on the hospitals - which is the sole excuse originally provided for the torture package of restrictions in the first place

The Government isn't being cautious and sensible, it is wetting itself and caving in to pressure from the creators of (highly unreliable) disease models at the first sign of trouble

The Government will keep us under restrictions of varying severity until kingdom come if it keeps behaving like that

Yep, it's incredible how every time there is a big deadline approaching for a Government decision, it just so happens that Ferguson and Warwick have rushed out "the latest model based on the "latest" data" predicting all sorts of doom and gloom just a couple of days earlier.

Be quite clear, these models are not based on "the latest data". Most of the models make predictions based on human input and guesswork. They can be made and tweaked to say whatever the creators of the models want them to. You notice that they all have common features. Rapid rises (in worst case) to a scary peak level, followed by a fall. How do the determine the peak? Why do they all then start to fall? Human input and guesswork.

This is nothing to do with "the latest data" at all. They could have produced exactly the same models at any time in the last 4 weeks. Or 2 months. They just so happened to have coincided this one two days before a big decision was due. Allowing a head of steam to build up behind more prevarication and delays. Despite there really being nothing in the data now, than wasn't obvious 3 weeks ago. So you had Johnson saying "there's nothing in the data" to prevent unlocking. And there still isn't. By now there's the added dimension of the model predicting bad things. It happens every time.

dixiedean said:

I take it everyone venting here tonight will be swearing off a Tory vote while the PM is in power?
Nope. Thought not. Therefore he will remain.
Ultimately, then, who is responsible?
Yes, but Corbyn, flags, statue, boring, Brexit, Lib Dems, woke, trans, Greens, Count Binface, housing, taxes, wibble, take a knee, wibble, wibble.

Yeah, we are in donkey with a blue rosette territory. Only donkeys are reliable and loyal, and the PM is not.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

Australia did so.

And did we stop more people flying to India during April ?

Andy_JS said:

Extraordinary interview with former MP for Kidderminster, Dr Richard Taylor, who wants lockdown to continue indefinitely until Zero Covid has been achieved.

On this video, starting at 18 mins 58 secs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QACdTbI44nk

His argument seems to be but but but there are anti-vaxxers out there....what a bellend....antivaxxers are not going to change their mind.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Andy_JS said:

Extraordinary interview with former MP for Kidderminster, Dr Richard Taylor, who wants lockdown to continue indefinitely until Zero Covid has been achieved.

On this video, starting at 18 mins 58 secs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QACdTbI44nk

His argument seems to be but but but there are anti-vaxxers out there....what a bellend....antivaxxers are not going to change their mind.

It's a shame we can't pack all the Zero Covidiots off to a little Zero Covid island of their own. I nominate South Georgia.

Black_Rook said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Andy_JS said:

Extraordinary interview with former MP for Kidderminster, Dr Richard Taylor, who wants lockdown to continue indefinitely until Zero Covid has been achieved.

On this video, starting at 18 mins 58 secs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QACdTbI44nk

His argument seems to be but but but there are anti-vaxxers out there....what a bellend....antivaxxers are not going to change their mind.

It's a shame we can't pack all the Zero Covidiots off to a little Zero Covid island of their own. I nominate South Georgia.

He's even worse than a Zero Covidiot. In the interview he seems to acknowledge that Zero Covid isn't even possible. Hence, lockdown effectively forever. At least most Zero Covidians seem to advocate from a point of view that Zero Covid is an achievable end point. Even if their arguments make no sense.

gealbhan said:

Unlike PB - the Murdered Tree Media seems to have taken the news in their stride and giving government an easy ride.

There are some other things to talk about. Some gongs being given out. The government moving age of consent to eighteen. The heatwave. The successful G7 (especially for 🐿 she is now on the world stage). The football, which will be a huge betting and boozing event.

I predict they will be banging on about foreign summer holidays and what about some wanky arts festival at the press conference on Monday....not a word about the then 7 million jabs in a warehouse not being used, and apparently we need this extra month to do 14 million more jabs.

CarlottaVance said:

Andy_JS said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

What about Australia?

What about it? They haven't got 10,000 truckers arriving daily on Ro-Ro ferries either. And when Delta gets a foothold (as it almost certainly will) they will not be in a happy place.

The Delta hotspots have flared up in places that look awfully like they all contain Indian diaspora communities - they're not spread evenly all over the country, or perhaps concentrated near the Channel ports, as one might expect if land freight were a significant driver of this.

If the door had been slammed shut on India promptly, and returnees made to quarantine away from the rest of the population, then we would not be in the stinking heap of excrement that we are now. We were told downthread that the Government and the scientists are both much better informed than we are. Which is true. So why did nobody in Whitehall see this particular fifty tonne boulder rolling down the mountain towards us?

When the truth outs about the advice given on India in the eventual public inquiry into this whole catastrophe, it should prove quite revelatory.

DougSeal said:

Black_Rook said:

DougSeal said:

kle4 said:

DougSeal said:

williamglenn said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

DougSeal said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DougSeal said:

In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?

As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.

We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.

I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.

For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.

That's what we should focus on.

Hospitalisations are also important surely?

They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,

Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory

Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.

I don’t think anyone thinks deaths will be as bad this time around, not from Covid anyway.

People clearly do think that, as they are saying that by claiming it will be as bad as previous waves.

No, they are saying as many cases as in previous waves, I can’t see many references (outside the usual suspects) regarding deaths. All the indications show that cases could be as bad, hospitalisations too, but deaths have, thankfully, not shown much of a rise at all.

How in the name of God can the hospitalisations get as bad as last time? The overwhelming majority of the vulnerable half of the population has been double-jabbed, providing high levels of protection against symptomatic illness and very high levels of protection against severe illness. Hospitalisation amongst younger age groups is comparatively uncommon, the bulk of the fortysomethings have also had at least one dose plus time for it to work, and where younger people are being admitted they are typically less seriously ill, require less care and stay for shorter periods.

We have heard as much from the Chief Exec of NHS Providers. We have seen as much in the hospitalisation stats from Bolton.

How are we going to end up back in January? It's literally incredible.

It’s happening. Sure, Bolton’s looking good, but hospitalisations in the NW as a whole are starting to track exactly the numbers at the start of the second wave. There is not an insignificant level of vaccine escape with this new variant and over 2 million over 50s are not yet fully vaccinated - this 47 year old is not happy he’s only had one dose given it’s only 33% effective at one dose compared to two.

I don’t like this situation either. I just want to burn my mask and get a train into town. If we had kept Delta out we wouldn’t be in this piss poor situation. But hospitalisations are rising. Numbers on ventilators are rising. Both exponentially. You can’t just shrug your shoulders at that. Blame Johnson for sure, not for this decision, but for the one he failed to take in March or early April. It’s on him.

Sorry, your vaccine escape number is clearly tosh.

5% of cases come from people who are double jabbed.
50% of the population producing 5% of the cases means it is north of 90% effective after two jabs.

*And* it's those with the weakest immune systems who've been double jabbed, so real (whole population) vaccine efficacy is more like 92-93%.

That being said, it is slightly concerning that the new variant causes more cases in the single jabbed. Now, we do need to be slightly careful here because: (a) some people will have caught Delta before receiving their vaccination and (b) AZN takes a significant period of time for protection to build. But, even accounting for those factors, it's probably still 75%+ effective at reducing symptomatic infections, and 85-90% for serious Covid.

Ultimately, I'd focus on a single metric: number of people in hospital. If that is growing at above 35% week-over-week, we have a serious problem, and we're going to have full hospitals before everyone is fully protected.

But if it's growing at 20% or less, then the virus will run out of hosts long before it the numbers in hospital overwhelm the NHS.

Where are we? Week-over-week in England, numbers in hospital are up less than 10%. Even in the North West it - just - below 35%.

Final point: there is a real disconnect between admissions and numbers in hospital right now compared to the last two waves. Simply, (on average) people are spending less time in hospital. That's extremely good news.

gealbhan said:

Unlike PB - the Murdered Tree Media seems to have taken the news in their stride and giving government an easy ride.

There are some other things to talk about. Some gongs being given out. The government moving age of consent to eighteen. The heatwave. The successful G7 (especially for 🐿 she is now on the world stage). The football, which will be a huge betting and boozing event.

The mental gymnastics the Government are going through to be delaying the lifting of restrictions because of an expectation of an enormous wave of Covid infections, hospitalisations and deaths, washing through the country - whilst at the same time fully expecting Wembley to be hosting European championship semi finals and final with 40-50k crowds in four weeks time is something i'm utterly mystified by.

And you know what happens within a week of the new 'mooted' date for the lifting of restrictions? The British Grand Prix!

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

I take it everyone venting here tonight will be swearing off a Tory vote while the PM is in power?
Nope. Thought not. Therefore he will remain.
Ultimately, then, who is responsible?
Yes, but Corbyn, flags, statue, boring, Brexit, Lib Dems, woke, trans, Greens, Count Binface, housing, taxes, wibble, take a knee, wibble, wibble.

Yeah, we are in donkey with a blue rosette territory. Only donkeys are reliable and loyal, and the PM is not.

I would happily vote for somebody less authoritarian, but Labour and the Lib Dems are even worse.

Time for a Farage comeback? Trouble is, he's authoritarian in different ways.

gealbhan said:

dixiedean said:

gealbhan said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

dixiedean said:

I take it everyone venting here tonight will be swearing off a Tory vote while the PM is in power?
Nope. Thought not. Therefore he will remain.
Ultimately, then, who is responsible?
Yes, but Corbyn, flags, statue, boring, Brexit, Lib Dems, woke, trans, Greens, Count Binface, housing, taxes, wibble, take a knee, wibble, wibble.

It would help us Boris-skeptics if you guys could provide a decent Opposition. But you can't, can you? Fucking Corbyn, FFS, and now the idiot Starmer, who is entirely captured by the Woke

If you had a Blair in charge I would vote for him tomorrow, even after Iraq

Do you know what? I wouldn't have a Blair in charge.
I'd have the Blair.
Anthony Charles Lynton no less.
But it ain't up to me.
This is, however, a Conservative government and it is up to you, Tory voters. I don't vote for them, so am powerless. You do. So stop it. Stay at home draw a penis, whatever.

Blair is far too economically right wing and authoritarian for Libertarian UK post Brexit. There is no way he could pull voters off of Boris.

And therein is the problem. A minority (40-45%) worship the PM. So he'll continue as he is. Treating us as he does. It is bordering on an abusive relationship.
And we continue to love him for it.
He'll change. He sometimes makes mistakes but means well. And he really does have my best interests at heart.
And at least that statue is still there. And forever will be.

It’s now got a Cool Britannia vibe like the first couple of Blair years, hasn’t it. Only not Cool Britannia a Winston Churchill Our Finest Hour Redux.

Very much so. Well spotted and put.

Black_Rook said:

CarlottaVance said:

Andy_JS said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

What about Australia?

What about it? They haven't got 10,000 truckers arriving daily on Ro-Ro ferries either. And when Delta gets a foothold (as it almost certainly will) they will not be in a happy place.

The Delta hotspots have flared up in places that look awfully like they all contain Indian diaspora communities - they're not spread evenly all over the country, or perhaps concentrated near the Channel ports, as one might expect if land freight were a significant driver of this.

If the door had been slammed shut on India promptly, and returnees made to quarantine away from the rest of the population, then we would not be in the stinking heap of excrement that we are now. We were told downthread that the Government and the scientists are both much better informed than we are. Which is true. So why did nobody in Whitehall see this particular fifty tonne boulder rolling down the mountain towards us?

When the truth outs about the advice given on India in the eventual public inquiry into this whole catastrophe, it should prove quite revelatory.

This is, sadly, correct.

If the government had slammed the door shut on India earlier, we might have reduced the seeding cases by as much as 75%.

That would mean that our cases numbers would probably still be at very low levels, and we could be sure that the vaccines would be administered before Delta ran out of control.

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

Bollocks. Australia did it. We could do it.

Australia didn't close its borders to its own citizens. If it did it would be breaking international human rights law. Citizens have a legal right to reside on and re-enter the territory of the home state. (Source: Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is binding on the states that have ratified it; see also Article 13 of the UNDR). If you've got a highly infectious disease you don't have the right to spread it, but you have a right to enter your own country...if necessary going into quarantine. Or if you are a wanted criminal you can go to prison. But the only legal way to keep you out is to strip you of citizenship first.

kinabalu said:

IshmaelZ said:

kinabalu said:

Black_Rook said:

kinabalu said:

Black_Rook said:

williamglenn said:

Black_Rook said:

rottenborough said:

Adam Brooks
@EssexPR
·
2h
Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started.
Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.

Many are now finished for good.

SLOW CLAP
@GOVUK

The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.

We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.

National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.

Bring it on.

That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.

IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE

They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.

No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.

Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.

Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.

You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.

Your £1 against my £10.

I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.

But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?

God yes. The bloke's an utter charlatan. If it worked for him politically he'd reimpose hard lockdown and keep it there for years. I just think you're misreading the situation. A short pause in the roadmap is one thing. A tortured and prolonged twilight to the pandemic is quite another. He won't be doing what you fear. It won't play out like that. I absolutely promise you and that's not something I do lightly. If you won't take my bet, take my promise.

It is obvious that his instincts are very strongly against lockdown, and that if he is forced into lockdown extensions it will be out of necessity. This site is collectively singing from a hymn sheet which says "Are we nearly there, daddy?" and then "But daddy, you PROMISED we were nearly there" and refuses to recognize the exigencies of life. The Tory Party did not invent the virus and has next to no control over how it behaves. Especially not once lockdown has been removed from its toolkit by pb fiat.

I kind of agree most of the way with that. What I'm not sure about is "necessity". I personally would like to see legal restrictions ended but with counsel to stay cautious depending on personal risk. I think there's some politics in the delay decision. Looking ultra careful (just for a short while and just for this last step) will play well for him, I think. It counteracts his mistakes in the other direction. But, yes, I do think there's also some rationale there. Risk mitigation against NHS pressure and not insignificant sickness and death from exploding cases. And, yes, I do think there are some on here losing the plot a bit.

I'll add that the reason Portugal was taken off the green list was to give the appearance that the government is alert to what is happening in other countries and prepared to act promptly.

Which is as we know bollox.

But its an appearance which will fool many.

Flatlander said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

Bollocks. Australia did it. We could do it

It would be fucking hard on people stranded but 150,000 Brits have DIED and now thousands more will die, and thousands of businesses will go under, and we will all groan under yet more billions of debt.

Spending an extra 3 months in India is not prison nor is it death.

We should have done it. We failed. Boris failed. The government failed. It is a calamity, and they must take the blame for a stupid mistake

At the time the government red listed Pakistan and Bangladesh I recall it was actually the South African variant that they were trying to avoid, rather than any new Indian variant. I thought that at that time it was believed that India mostly had the Kent variant - and that was well under control in the UK.

Obviously the government should have been extra cautious with travel to India because of the extra risk of introducing something into low vaccination communities, particularly those where quarantine (when observed) doesn't really work due to the multi-generational households.

It does seem like a bad case of all the holes in the cheese lining up, but one where there was no need to be playing with holey cheese in the first place.


Nonetheless, I can't see any reason not to unlock. We are going to get an exit wave whatever we do, and it might as well be now. All that will happen with a delay of more than a week or two will be an even more lethal variant turning up in the Autumn. This one isn't going to kill tens of thousands. Keep calm and carry on vaxxing.


PS Remember some parts of Europe stopped passengers from India later than we did. They won't escape this either. And neither will the US.

They will "escape" it, or be perceived to escape it, because they are unlocking at a far higher level of regular levels of hospitalisations and deaths than it the UK. So, relative to their daily numbers, there is far less room for growth (on the basis of the theory of the "vaccine wall". The growth is all outwards so no areas get overwhelmed. Rather than upwards within individual areas (after the ceiling is reached). It makes a big difference. We are seeing growth from a very low base. Over the last month or so we have probably averaged no more than 10 deaths a day. Germany, France, Italy, America etc. More like 100 pro-rata.

rcs1000 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

We should, though, have had a strict quarantine system for Brits returning from places like India.

It is extraordinary that there was a five day delay between the announcement that India would move to the red list (18 April) and it actually being put on it (23 April). That's five days of completely full flights when people will have been free to go straight into their homes and their communities.

If they had been put into quarantine hotels (and we had a LOT of empty hotels), then we might have cut the seeding cases by 75% or more.

Indeed, one can argue India should have been on the red list from the very beginning of April, when it became very clear there was a serious problem there (especially given their limited testing). A move to the Red list then could have cut seeing cases by 90+%.

Compare how quickly India restricted travel from Britain in December to how quickly Britain restricted travel from India in April.

LOL....those boycotting teaching students at Oriel because of the statue.

Professor Danny Dorling of St. Peter’s College – a lecturer of geography. Also participating in the boycott is Dr Sneha Krishnan, an associate professor in human geography. Guido has since been informed that Oriel has not taught undergraduates geography for around two decades.

Danny Dorling is Halford Mackinder professor of human geography at Oxford University

-----

Halford Mackinder is shall we say a tad interesting...for instance.

At Oxford, Mackinder was the driving force behind the creation of a School of Geography in 1899.[6] In the same year, he led an expedition of the first Europeans to climb Mount Kenya.[7] It was during this expedition that eight of his African porters were killed; it is disputed as to who killed them, as both Mackinder and another man, Edward Saunders were recorded issuing death threats.[8]

Strange double standards some people have.

Vomp said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

Bollocks. Australia did it. We could do it.

Australia didn't close its borders to its own citizens. If it did it would be breaking international human rights law. Citizens have a legal right to reside on and re-enter the territory of the home state. (Source: Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is binding on the states that have ratified it; see also Article 13 of the UNDR). If you've got a highly infectious disease you don't have the right to spread it, but you have a right to enter your own country...if necessary going into quarantine. Or if you are a wanted criminal you can go to prison. But the only legal way to keep you out is to strip you of citizenship first.

Actually they did, didn't they? There are Australians who for various reasons (insufficient capacity in quarantine hotels, and inability to meet the costs) who have been unable to return for 15 months. And they actually banned all travel from India, without even the option of quarantine.

But it's not clear what happens if other countries insisted that the Australians stuck with them had to leave.

alex_ said:

Flatlander said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

Bollocks. Australia did it. We could do it

It would be fucking hard on people stranded but 150,000 Brits have DIED and now thousands more will die, and thousands of businesses will go under, and we will all groan under yet more billions of debt.

Spending an extra 3 months in India is not prison nor is it death.

We should have done it. We failed. Boris failed. The government failed. It is a calamity, and they must take the blame for a stupid mistake

At the time the government red listed Pakistan and Bangladesh I recall it was actually the South African variant that they were trying to avoid, rather than any new Indian variant. I thought that at that time it was believed that India mostly had the Kent variant - and that was well under control in the UK.

Obviously the government should have been extra cautious with travel to India because of the extra risk of introducing something into low vaccination communities, particularly those where quarantine (when observed) doesn't really work due to the multi-generational households.

It does seem like a bad case of all the holes in the cheese lining up, but one where there was no need to be playing with holey cheese in the first place.


Nonetheless, I can't see any reason not to unlock. We are going to get an exit wave whatever we do, and it might as well be now. All that will happen with a delay of more than a week or two will be an even more lethal variant turning up in the Autumn. This one isn't going to kill tens of thousands. Keep calm and carry on vaxxing.


PS Remember some parts of Europe stopped passengers from India later than we did. They won't escape this either. And neither will the US.

They will "escape" it, or be perceived to escape it, because they are unlocking at a far higher level of regular levels of hospitalisations and deaths than it the UK. So, relative to their daily numbers, there is far less room for growth. We are seeing growth from a very low base. Over the last month or so we have probably averaged no more than 10 deaths a day. Germany, France, Italy, America etc. More like 100 pro-rata.

That's very true.

I suppose the problem for the goverment is that they can't prove that such a ceiling exists for this variant or at what level it might be. If other countries were doing more sequencing it might have helped modelling.

rcs1000 said:

DougSeal said:

Black_Rook said:

DougSeal said:

kle4 said:

DougSeal said:

williamglenn said:

DougSeal said:

Sean_F said:

DougSeal said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DougSeal said:

In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?

As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.

We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.

I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.

For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.

That's what we should focus on.

Hospitalisations are also important surely?

They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,

Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory

Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.

I don’t think anyone thinks deaths will be as bad this time around, not from Covid anyway.

People clearly do think that, as they are saying that by claiming it will be as bad as previous waves.

No, they are saying as many cases as in previous waves, I can’t see many references (outside the usual suspects) regarding deaths. All the indications show that cases could be as bad, hospitalisations too, but deaths have, thankfully, not shown much of a rise at all.

How in the name of God can the hospitalisations get as bad as last time? The overwhelming majority of the vulnerable half of the population has been double-jabbed, providing high levels of protection against symptomatic illness and very high levels of protection against severe illness. Hospitalisation amongst younger age groups is comparatively uncommon, the bulk of the fortysomethings have also had at least one dose plus time for it to work, and where younger people are being admitted they are typically less seriously ill, require less care and stay for shorter periods.

We have heard as much from the Chief Exec of NHS Providers. We have seen as much in the hospitalisation stats from Bolton.

How are we going to end up back in January? It's literally incredible.

It’s happening. Sure, Bolton’s looking good, but hospitalisations in the NW as a whole are starting to track exactly the numbers at the start of the second wave. There is not an insignificant level of vaccine escape with this new variant and over 2 million over 50s are not yet fully vaccinated - this 47 year old is not happy he’s only had one dose given it’s only 33% effective at one dose compared to two.

I don’t like this situation either. I just want to burn my mask and get a train into town. If we had kept Delta out we wouldn’t be in this piss poor situation. But hospitalisations are rising. Numbers on ventilators are rising. Both exponentially. You can’t just shrug your shoulders at that. Blame Johnson for sure, not for this decision, but for the one he failed to take in March or early April. It’s on him.

Sorry, your vaccine escape number is clearly tosh.

5% of cases come from people who are double jabbed.
50% of the population producing 5% of the cases means it is north of 90% effective after two jabs.

*And* it's those with the weakest immune systems who've been double jabbed, so real (whole population) vaccine efficacy is more like 92-93%.

That being said, it is slightly concerning that the new variant causes more cases in the single jabbed. Now, we do need to be slightly careful here because: (a) some people will have caught Delta before receiving their vaccination and (b) AZN takes a significant period of time for protection to build. But, even accounting for those factors, it's probably still 75%+ effective at reducing symptomatic infections, and 85-90% for serious Covid.

Ultimately, I'd focus on a single metric: number of people in hospital. If that is growing at above 35% week-over-week, we have a serious problem, and we're going to have full hospitals before everyone is fully protected.

But if it's growing at 20% or less, then the virus will run out of hosts long before it the numbers in hospital overwhelm the NHS.

Where are we? Week-over-week in England, numbers in hospital are up less than 10%. Even in the North West it - just - below 35%.

Final point: there is a real disconnect between admissions and numbers in hospital right now compared to the last two waves. Simply, (on average) people are spending less time in hospital. That's extremely good news.

A few minutes looking at the actual data and doing some simple calculations shows this.

But how many politicians do so ?

They're much more impressed with scary graphs.

Fishing said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

We should, though, have had a strict quarantine system for Brits returning from places like India.

It is extraordinary that there was a five day delay between the announcement that India would move to the red list (18 April) and it actually being put on it (23 April). That's five days of completely full flights when people will have been free to go straight into their homes and their communities.

If they had been put into quarantine hotels (and we had a LOT of empty hotels), then we might have cut the seeding cases by 75% or more.

Indeed, one can argue India should have been on the red list from the very beginning of April, when it became very clear there was a serious problem there (especially given their limited testing). A move to the Red list then could have cut seeing cases by 90+%.

Compare how quickly India restricted travel from Britain in December to how quickly Britain restricted travel from India in April.

Is that actually true? Or would indians and returning Bits have flown through some third country? Anyway our partial quarantine system has certainly failed spectacularly.

Yeah, there was at least a week after the Indian quarantine was introduced when we read all sorts of stories of people finding other routes back. Mostly through Turkey.

Which was then added to the red list.

alex_ said:

Vomp said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

Bollocks. Australia did it. We could do it.

Australia didn't close its borders to its own citizens. If it did it would be breaking international human rights law. Citizens have a legal right to reside on and re-enter the territory of the home state. (Source: Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is binding on the states that have ratified it; see also Article 13 of the UNDR). If you've got a highly infectious disease you don't have the right to spread it, but you have a right to enter your own country...if necessary going into quarantine. Or if you are a wanted criminal you can go to prison. But the only legal way to keep you out is to strip you of citizenship first.

Actually they did, didn't they? There are Australians who for various reasons (insufficient capacity in quarantine hotels, and inability to meet the costs) who have been unable to return for 15 months. And they actually banned all travel from India, without even the option of quarantine.

But it's not clear what happens if other countries insisted that the Australians stuck with them had to leave.

Australia has basically said "if you can afford $3,000 for a quarantine hotel for 14-21 days, then come back".

If you are a family of four with modest means, you ain't coming back.

On the other hand, I know a very wealthy Australian family living in Dubai that has made several trips in and out of the country.

Stuartinromford said:

Black_Rook said:

Well at least we have ended the PB debate on Boris Johnson.

Are there any PB Uber-Tories still willing to defend the man? HYUFD, perhaps?

I reckon we're probably running at about 90% thoroughly sick of the pandemic and thoroughly sick of him along with it.

Problem is, at the rate things are going we're likely to be stuck with both of them for the rest of the decade.

I think HYUFD is too good a Tory to do that. He's never given the impression of totally buying into the Cult of Boris; in fact I can imagine HYUFD being an excellent Man In A Grey Suit when the time comes. (I really really mean this as a compliment.)

There is the problem that, since the purges of 2019, there isn't much of an alternative Cabinet to lead a post-Boris Conservative Party. The current crop are there because they attached themselves to Boris, most of them will have to go when he goes.

The other thing that saves Boris for now is probably the split between "we can't unlock because of Boris's Indian Indecision" and "we should unlock but Boris is afraid of the boffins". The two groups will be hitting different targets, so the battering will probably fail to sink the blonde buffoon again.

But he's not up to the job of being Prime Minister, is he?

Boris is still by far the most electable and charismatic leader the Tories have.

As tonight's Yougov shows he can get away with not lifting all restrictions on June 21st and still retain most of the public onside, though undoubtedly there will be some Tory leakage to Reform UK if that occurs

FrancisUrquhart said:

Covid passports, which will be used by sports fans for the first time at England’s Euro 2020 match on Sunday, will “disproportionately discriminate” based on race, religion, age and socio-economic background, a cross-party committee has concluded.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/12/covid-passports-will-be-discriminatory-and-must-be-scrapped-say-mps

Of course they're going to fucking discriminate based on age!

Andy_JS said:

One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.

The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed

alex_ said:

Vomp said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Time_to_Leave said:

You know, probably the most annoying thing about this site is arseholes on both sides of the political divide who speak about the serious administrative business of Government like it’s trivial or easy. Those who think their amateur analysis of the figures they have on Covid is better than that of the Government after the experience of the last year.

You might be a lawyer, or a programmer, or an engineer, but you have no idea. You don’t operate in that level of ambiguity and you should be thankful the decision is not on your shoulders. If it was, most of you who are so dogmatic on here would crumble to the floor in tears.

Government is about nuance, and it’s not easy. I am dubious of an extension but still, as throughout this crisis, on balance I trust in the Government’s experts. No one else is better placed. No one. Certainly no one on here.

An excellent post

It is all so easy to shout from the sidelines

It's not the nuanced decision they are making now that matter - of course that is complex. It is the reason they are forced to make this decision. Which is: THEY DIDN'T SHUT THE FUCKING BORDERS

I am sorry to shout at you. but this is a clear and simple truth, which, it seems, needs emphasis before it sinks in

No need to apologise to me as I understand the anger

I would just say that the vast majority of those returning from India were our fellow citizens who had been visiting family and an arbitrary closure of our border to them was near impossible

Bollocks. Australia did it. We could do it.

Australia didn't close its borders to its own citizens. If it did it would be breaking international human rights law. Citizens have a legal right to reside on and re-enter the territory of the home state. (Source: Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is binding on the states that have ratified it; see also Article 13 of the UNDR). If you've got a highly infectious disease you don't have the right to spread it, but you have a right to enter your own country...if necessary going into quarantine. Or if you are a wanted criminal you can go to prison. But the only legal way to keep you out is to strip you of citizenship first.

Actually they did, didn't they? There are Australians who for various reasons (insufficient capacity in quarantine hotels, and inability to meet the costs) who have been unable to return for 15 months. And they actually banned all travel from India, without even the option of quarantine.

But it's not clear what happens if other countries insisted that the Australians stuck with them had to leave.

I will stand corrected if necessary but have you got a source? The page I checked was this, but I guess the rules were stricter before. Banning flights from a country is very inconvenient but it is not the same as banning entry by Australian citizens who at the given moment are in the other country. If they banned citizens from entering just because they'd been in India, without regard to where they flew in from, that's an appalling infringement of human rights. The army should be equipped to run quarantine compounds.

rcs1000 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Covid passports, which will be used by sports fans for the first time at England’s Euro 2020 match on Sunday, will “disproportionately discriminate” based on race, religion, age and socio-economic background, a cross-party committee has concluded.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/12/covid-passports-will-be-discriminatory-and-must-be-scrapped-say-mps

Of course they're going to fucking discriminate based on age!

Our genius MPs at work.....

The real argument is about a) the burden on business and b) what happens to the data and c) WILL THEY ACTUALLY WORK TO REDUCE COVID...

Not if some 18 year old black kid is being "discriminated"

alex_ said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Covid passports, which will be used by sports fans for the first time at England’s Euro 2020 match on Sunday, will “disproportionately discriminate” based on race, religion, age and socio-economic background, a cross-party committee has concluded.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/12/covid-passports-will-be-discriminatory-and-must-be-scrapped-say-mps

This is (largely) a silly argument. It's not discrimination if people have actively chosen not to have a vaccine that was offered free to all. And (in the case of age - where there is an argument) don't they have the option of taking a test.

I'm strongly against vaccine passports for most activities - because of the enormous and largely impossible burden that it would put on smaller businesses to comply/enforce. But it doesn't really apply for really large events.

It's a completely bizarre argument, except, as you note, by age. It's not like voting rights in the American South in the 1950s - that was actual discrimination. In this case, regardless of your race all you have to do if you don't want to be discriminated against is take the F--ing vaccine, which the government isn't withholding from you, indeed it's begging you to take it.

There are good arguments against vaccine passports, but that they're discriminatory isn't one of them.

gealbhan said:

Black_Rook said:

gealbhan said:

noisywinter said:

I've written to my MP- Mike Freer urging him to remove Boris if he delays freedom Day. If you have a Tory MP I hope you do the same. Obviously no chance of it changing anything but our voices need to be heard.

I am very angry... This is a disgraceful Prime minister

The government never dubbed it Freedom Day, only idiot newspapers and idiot posters to blogs.

The government never promised Freedom Day. Only a gap between unlocking to assess how to proceed.

The government are not breaking Freedom Day promise to you. They never made it. Only a promise to be cautious and sensible.

The Government kept wibbling on about there being no reason to delay until about 48 hours ago, leading the nation up the garden path

The Government created the problem with Delta by allowing a flood of travellers from India to seed it in pockets around the country

The Government has also, it would now appear, come to the conclusion that Delta is such a serious threat that re-opening is to be delayed indefinitely (because there's highly unlikely to be a promise of it, even in four weeks' time,) despite good evidence from the early hotspots that it won't make enough people seriously ill to place serious pressure on the hospitals - which is the sole excuse originally provided for the torture package of restrictions in the first place

The Government isn't being cautious and sensible, it is wetting itself and caving in to pressure from the creators of (highly unreliable) disease models at the first sign of trouble

The Government will keep us under restrictions of varying severity until kingdom come if it keeps behaving like that

Your first bit is not entirely true. Boris said something about no reason yet to delay, but his government as a whole not given assurance for two,weeks now. And to fair to them Third wave had leapt up last 7ndays quicker than expected.

There wasn’t that many hospitalisations and deaths to enter Lockdown One, it was based on extrapolating - this variant can hospitalise and kill people with two jabs as well as more permissive than previous dominant strain. It’s extrapolating that data driving this government decision.

R may now be 1.4

So I have been asking MaxPB why does it happen in waves, are we victims of waves, or can we master them?

Lots of fuss here about air travel, but have we opened up in the wrong way to lose control of R. We allowed parting at cricket and football before weddings?

R doesn't matter that much if the link between cases and hospitalisations is sufficiently disrupted. The early evidence is that this is indeed the case. Bolton certainly appears to have passed through its peak of both caseload and hospital admissions without the local trust coming under significant pressure. Blackburn is showing encouraging early signs of doing likewise. The Bedfordshire Trust is still reporting rising hospital numbers, but it covers Luton as well as Bedford and cases are still in the rising phase there.

Regardless, the cases are spreading in a pedestrian fashion from the original foci of infection; immunisation rates are very high amongst the most vulnerable, and continuing to climb at pace amongst younger cohorts; no hospital trust anywhere in the country shows any sign of coming under significant, sustained pressure from Covid admissions; deaths are still on the floor, which we would certainly not expect a full two months into the spread of Delta in this country, if the vaccines were not already having a very substantial protective effect; and we have both anecdata and the word of the Chief Executive of NHS Providers to suggest that the link between cases and hospitalisations has been, at least, very substantially disrupted: patients that are still coming into hospital are younger, fitter, need less care and are discharged more quickly, so the average burden of each patient coming into hospital is also lower than in previous waves.

As for the test events, I would imagine that they're making sod all difference to the transmission of Covid, or else the idiots would presumably have stopped the crowds from attending beforehand? The evidence from the end of the football season should certainly have been available for a little while now. Not to mention the World Snooker Championship, where the final was played *indoors* to full houses, yet doesn't appear to have been reported subsequently as a disastrous super-spreader event. Given all of this, why it's now deemed lethally dangerous to have 70 or 100 people at a wedding, rather than 30, when our duplicitous PM led couples to believe that it would be safe for such events to go ahead up until about five minutes ago, is inexplicable.

I'm fed up of being fair to this stupid, negligent administration. They created the problem, and now they are compounding the error by over-reacting to it in a significant way, one that will do a lot of unnecessary damage to the economy and individual livelihoods.

gealbhan said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Told you...

Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia

Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.

The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/11/gareth-southgate-balance-england-side-croatia-euro-2020

It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.

Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.

I disagree.

We know Croatia well from recent meetings.

First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.

A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.

Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.

Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.

CarlottaVance said:

How EU countries view the UK:



https://ecfr.eu/publication/crisis-of-confidence-how-europeans-see-their-place-in-the-world/

That's a weird question....you can see a country as both an ally and one you compete against, that's capitalism.

I see most of those countries as both countries we need to cooperate with and compete with.

noisywinter said:

I've written to my MP- Mike Freer urging him to remove Boris if he delays freedom Day. If you have a Tory MP I hope you do the same. Obviously no chance of it changing anything but our voices need to be heard.

I called my tory MP a 'c*nt' in Morrisons car park but it did nothing. I wanted to gob on the driver's door of his shitty fucking Subaru but Mrs DA said she'd divorce me.

I don't care about June 21 one way or the other because I just do whatever I want and balls to them.

CarlottaVance said:

How EU countries view the UK:



https://ecfr.eu/publication/crisis-of-confidence-how-europeans-see-their-place-in-the-world/

Interestingly, ally + partner is actually pretty similar across Europe (except Germany).

Dura_Ace said:

noisywinter said:

I've written to my MP- Mike Freer urging him to remove Boris if he delays freedom Day. If you have a Tory MP I hope you do the same. Obviously no chance of it changing anything but our voices need to be heard.

I called my tory MP a 'c*nt' in Morrisons car park but it did nothing. I wanted to gob on the driver's door of his shitty fucking Subaru but Mrs DA said she'd divorce me.

I don't care about June 21 one way or the other because I just do whatever I want and balls to them.

Problem is 53% support the lockdown. They love that armchair so much.

Black_Rook said:

HYUFD said:

Andy_JS said:

One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.

The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed

So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?

I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.

50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.

Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either

HYUFD said:

Black_Rook said:

HYUFD said:

Andy_JS said:

One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.

The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed

So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?

I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.

50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.

Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either

Edgbaston was. If you are seriously arguing that a half full Wembley somehow represents some sort of distinctive "safe" environment compared to a full one.

gealbhan said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

gealbhan said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Told you...

Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia

Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.

The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/11/gareth-southgate-balance-england-side-croatia-euro-2020

It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.

Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.

I disagree.

We know Croatia well from recent meetings.

First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.

A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.

Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.

Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.

True.

And even with a question over Grealish fitness, he can still start in my opinion.

It’s true managers like to work with players they know well. And form v number of caps and experience. So that is where Foden and Grealish start on bench.

It’s also true Mount is a better player than both, assist the other Saturday impressed you did it not? Kane, Sterling, Mount, and perhaps Rashford from right as the four creative players in a 4 2 1 3

That what Southgate will go with...but Foden has to play. He has shown at the highest level in Europe, he is up there with the best of them, he's got the complete game. Neither Rashford nor Sterling has his game.

He will also play a half fit Henderson and the limited Rice. Bellingham is better than Rice.